The Ashes 2013

"Don't Get Carried Away, Australia Will Be A Very Tough Side To Beat"

When the Australian squad was announced, The Daily Mail summed up the confident mood in England, “Is that all you’ve got? Get ready for a 5-0 thumping.”

After a seemingly endless build-up the Ashes battle will finally commence this Wednesday with the first Test at Trent Bridge. Following the British and Irish Lions’ triumph and Andy Murray’s Wimbledon success at the weekend, England are now expected to retain the Ashes and continue this classic summer of sport.

Alastair Cook’s side start the series as overwhelming favourites to win their third consecutive Ashes. The build-up has featured plenty of confident talk from England fans and pundits of even inflicting a 5-0 whitewash on the Australians, but the England captain is urging for some perspective.

“Don’t get carried away, Australia will be a very tough side to beat, and we will have to be at our best,” says Cook. “Anyone who is talking this Australian side down is just jumping on the bandwagon, they have a lot of very good players.”

But Cook also knows he presides over an exceptionally strong side, who should be too good for the Australians this summer.

“We have a very good squad, and I am certain they will perform,” he says. “This team is shaping up nicely because we have a lot of experience, and the guys who helped us win the Ashes in the last series are even better players now.

“I take a lot of confidence from looking around the dressing room at my team, there is an awful lot of very good players in there at the moment. We have guys who are breaking England records, and you should never take that for granted. We have guys like Jimmy Anderson who is at the absolute peak of his game, and he is getting better all the time.”England’s vice-captain Matt Prior is another player enjoying the best form of his career. For his achievements with both the bat and behind the stumps over the last year his team-mate Graeme Swann has even called him, “the best player in the world at the minute.”

“This is the best I have been playing in my career, I have got the keeping and batting to a high level together,” says Prior. “Right now is as well as I have ever played for England.” Prior is aware England are expected to win the Ashes by almost every pundit and commentator.

“They make predictions, it’s what they do, but as a team we don’t pay too much attention,” he says. “We just have to prepare as hard as ever for this series as if these same commentators were saying we could lose 5-0.”

What worries Prior most about the Australians? “It is the fact that they have been written off and there has been all this talk about them being a weak team. That can only make them more dangerous. They don’t make weak Australian teams, and they will be hungry and desperate to prove people wrong.”

When the Australian squad was announced two months ago the headline in The Daily Mail succinctly summed up the confident mood in England, “Is that all you’ve got? As Aussies name worst Ashes squad in recent memory…get ready for a 5-0 thumping.” Since then Australia have imploded in the Champions Trophy, been embroiled in controversy when David Warner was banned for an altercation with England’s Joe Root and sacked their coach Mickey Arthur and replaced him with Darren Lehmann.

Despite all this upheaval Australia’s young fast bowler Mitchell Starc is confident they can still get the better of England this summer.

“I have copped it a bit on Twitter from guys saying we are going to whitewash you, we are going to beat you 5-0, but I wouldn’t be so confident, I really reckon we can surprise a lot of people in this series,” says Starc. “I believe we can cause a shock. We might not have a lot of experience in Test cricket, but we have a lot of talent.”